You mean in the US or elsewhere? The US is only 25% of the total market. While a big number, there are far larger consumers of bananas. 'it is important to note that only 15 percent of banana production is traded in the international market'.
It sounds like people might have to learn to eat another type of banana. It has already happened when the market switched from Gros Michael to Cavendish. Given that there is 1000 varieties of bananas out there, that is a marketing problem, not a catastrophic problem.
I mean the existing commercial banana industry dependent on the present scale of output and sales to the developed world.
> The US is only 25% of the total market.
Not talking about just the US.
> it is important to note that only 15 percent of banana production is traded in the international market'.
And, e.g., the domestic production and consumption of East African bananas (a sizable share of the global total production) isn't part of the international commercial trade at issue (and isn't affected by losing the Cavendish since East African bananas are an entirely different set of varieties.)
> It sounds like people might have to learn to eat another type of banana. It has already happened when the market switched from Gros Michael to Cavendish.
Gros Michel and the cultivars Ithe Cavendish subgroup are quite similar in taste and commercial properties (Gros Michel is a bit thicker skinned and more transport hardy than most Cavendish varieties as I understand.) Which is why it's what the industry largely turned to when Gross Michel became nonviable.
Cavendish was the low hanging fruit of alternative bananas.
> Given that there is 1000 varieties of bananas out there, that is a marketing problem, not a catastrophic problem.
There's far fewer that are plausible replacements for Cavendish in large scale trade even before considering whether they are Panama disease resistant and other production and transport features. Cooking bananas that would, were they traded alongside existing commercial varieties, compete more with plantains than Cavendish bananas aren't a plausible replacement.
There is no commercially exploitable banana for export that we know of yet.
Going from Gros Michel to Cavendish required rethinking how we farm, harvest, ship, ripen, sell bananas. Cavendish could simply not be shipped like Gros Michel before.
You said yourself that Cavendish is a "boring" banana. This might be true. But all the great, tasty, small bananas you are talking about cannot be shipped anywhere by the means we know of today. That is, every market outside of the banana growing regions cannot have these, they will be mush, rotten or inedible once they reach the shelves.
Apart from that, I agree, we will (hopefully) eventually find a replacement and adjust our methods and taste. I'm all open for new banana tastes. But the problem is real, the economy as a system (farmers, logistics, consumer) does not know of an alternative so far. Even if you think different.
But I guess you could be very rich if you have an alternative ready and are willing to transport it and selling it in EU/US/Canada.
> But all the great, tasty, small bananas you are talking about cannot be shipped anywhere by the means we know of today
I'm fairly sure I've seen labelled-as-imported dwarf red and apple bananas in California, but certainly the transport properties of most plausible replacements by taste are inferior to Cavendish (and I don't even know if any of them are Panama disease resistant, and if they aren't, they aren't plausible replacements.)
You can get small quantities at meh pricing of other bananas, too. The question is whether there's anything that can be produced and shipped in large quantities at reasonable cost, like the Cavendish.
It's a catastrophic problem for the existing commercial banana industry, not for “all bananas”.